1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to time division switching systems, and more specifically to a power savings technique for a time slot interchanger of digital cross-connect systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
A prior art digital cross-connect system is of the type wherein a plurality of time slot interchangers are associated respectively with the outlet ports of the system and a plurality of data memories of each time slot interchanger are associated respectively with the inlet ports of the system. All data signals appearing at the inlet ports are sequentially stored in the data memories of all the time slot interchangers so that the same pattern of each incoming frame are held in multiple copies by the time slot interchangers. During a subsequent read cycle, the data memories of each time slot interchanger are randomly accessed and a sequence of stored signals is read out of the memories onto desired outgoing time slots for delivery to the associated outlet port. For each time slot interchanger, most of the stored data are not delivered to the outlet port. Therefore, the amount of power used for accessing the memories and writing the unused data is wasted.